


Ragdoll

by RoseThornhill



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, First Time, Ice Skating, Monster of the Week, UST to RST, figure skating, motw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:02:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27654523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseThornhill/pseuds/RoseThornhill
Summary: Mulder and Scully travel to Colorado when a figure skater is found embedded in the ice rink. Are they looking for a Japanese ice spirit, or a serial killer? Along the way, secrets are revealed, and a relationship takes a big step forward.Set during Season 5
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 18
Kudos: 47
Collections: X-Files Case File Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alienqueequeg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienqueequeg/gifts).



> For the 2020 X-Files Case Fic Exchange. This is a gift for AlienQueequeg, whose prompt was as follows:
> 
> Classic MOTW mutant a la Eugene Tooms or Flukeman. Freak of nature or scientific experiment gone wrong. Can be any season between 1-6. Dark horror mood for the case balanced with MSR levity.
> 
> I hope I did this story justice for you, Cecilia! I am a former figure skater myself, so this was a fun one for me.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta, Annie, and all my XF girls for coaching me through. 
> 
> NOTE: The smut is entirely confined to the Epilogue. The case fic and the sex are completely separate. You can enjoy the case fic without the smut, or you can enjoy the smut without the case fic.

BROADMOOR WORLD ARENA ICE HALL

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO

APRIL 14

Marie was pretty proud of that last rehearsal. She landed all her jumps, and ended with the music. She decided to use her last twenty minutes of ice time to “goof off.” In other words, just skate around, have fun, and relax.

She loved these late night rehearsal sessions. It was dark and quiet, and no one skated into her path or fought her over music choices. She could play ska or punk or hair bands; no one ever bothered her with obnoxious pop music or the wide variety of Andrew Lloyd Webber tracks that every ice skater managed to skate to at least once in their career. 

Marie realized she was lucky. Her parents were wealthy and supportive, which meant that she could have late night, private ice time. She didn’t talk about it with other girls at the rink. She didn’t want to rub it in, nor did she want the other girls trying to get in on her private ice time.

Marie took her time, skating around to her favorite mix of New Wave music. She got a little silly, doing messy footwork routines (focusing on speed rather than edges), bunny hops, even shoot-the-duck. In other words, she had fun.

A shadowy movement caught her attention in the bleachers and made her freeze. _What was that?_ It could have been a long, svelte leg, settling into place on the bleachers; it also could have been an ice octopus tentacle, the kind Marie has nightmares about before big competitions. _That’s ridiculous._ She shook her head, clearing the imagery from her imagination, and went back to enjoying her ice time. It was probably just one of the coaches, sneaking in to watch her.

Marie lost herself in her own interpretive routine to A-Ha’s “Take on Me.” She didn’t notice the shadow as it moved again. Didn’t notice as it crept towards her carefully, methodically. Didn’t notice the long limbs had a herky-jerky movement, like a marionette in an unskilled puppeteer’s hand. 

When the song came to an end and Marie stopped at the boards to chug some water, she heard an awkward creaking noise. It sounded like knuckles cracking. She spun around, searching the dark ice rink, desperate to match the noise to a completely mundane action. A coach who was there after hours. A crack in the ice. Hell, even a rat nibbling on an errant piece of popcorn would be better than what she was imagining.

She saw nothing. She kept scanning the rink as she drank some water.

She didn’t notice the blade against her throat until it was too late.

Blood spurted from Marie’s neck and she dropped to the ice. As she lay there, choking on her own blood, her attacker moved down. Marie was horrified, yet couldn’t look away. She struggled to maintain consciousness as the creature licked her blood off the ice. It moved in a strange, halting manner, like someone rapidly pausing and unpausing a DVD. Marie had never seen anything like it. The creature followed the trail of Marie’s blood down to her muscular thighs, and used the blade to carefully cut out chunks of flesh. As the twisted, loose creature chewed on fresh, raw chunks of Marie’s thighs, the girl lost consciousness. It was just as well; she didn’t want to watch anymore. 

* * *

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

WASHINGTON, D.C.

APRIL 15

“Pack your ice skates, Scully!”

She had barely entered the office and Mulder’s unbridled enthusiasm took her by surprise. Not being attacked with a case from the moment she entered the room; she was used to that. It was the words he used.

“Ice skates?” she stammered, unsure of where this was going.

“We have a case,” he announced, “and our flight leaves in an hour.”

“Wait… what?” Mulder was rarely this excited about a case, and he usually gave her more than an hour’s notice before they had to leave.

“They promised to leave the body in the ice until we got there, and I promised we wouldn’t wouldn’t take too long. You can look over the file on the flight.” 

“Mulder, slow down a minute,” Scully begged, grabbing him by the arm and forcing him to focus. “Ice? Skates? What is the X-file?”

Mulder took a deep breath. He knew he was borderline manic, and he knew Scully worried about him when he got that way. “Broadmoor, Colorado. A figure skater was found _in the ice_ at the ice rink where she trained.”

Scully had a hard time wrapping her mind around this. He must mean that the body was stuck _to_ the ice, or partially submerged. She let Mulder go. He grabbed his coat and tossed her the file as he fluttered out of the office. Scully stared after him, a new phrase haunting her mind.

_Leave the body in the ice._

* * *

BROADMOOR WORLD ARENA ICE HALL

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO

Mulder and Scully were met by the local police at the ice rink. The agents introduced themselves, then the police gave them a few minutes to lace up their skates. Mulder chose hockey skates, while Scully went with figure skates.

“You’ve skated before, right Scully?” 

“Um, yeah, a few times before,” she answered vaguely.

“I played peewee hockey when I was a kid,” Mulder announced proudly. “We were state champions.”

“I look forward to checking out your sweet moves,” she replied wryly.

Skates on, the pair made their way to the ice. Scully waited on the mat while Mulder stepped confidently onto the ice. His confidence faded as his legs shook a little bit, and he struggled to maintain his balance. “I guess skating isn’t like riding a bike,” he said sheepishly.

It was Scully’s turn. She stepped onto the ice without a waver, and skated smoothly to center ice, where the police were set up. Mulder grumbled under his breath as he followed - slowly. The police all wore ice skates, and none of them seemed to have any trouble getting around.

Encased within center ice, there was a young woman. She was obviously dead. The ice was sealed up smoothly over her, with no seams or lumps or any indication as to how she got there. Scully was surprised. This was not what she expected. It was hard to tell through the cloudy ice, but it looked like her throat was slit. Scully knelt down to get a better look, but she wouldn’t be able to tell anything until she got the body on an autopsy table. 

“A figure skater found her this morning,” the local cop told them. “Luckily she wasn’t found by the alpha-level skaters.” Off Mulder’s confused look, the cop explained. “The kids.”

“The average sheet of ice is only about an inch thick,” Scully muttered to Mulder. “A body is considerably thicker.” 

“Hence why we got the case,” Mulder announced proudly.

To the officers, she posed the question: “Any idea how she got in the ice?” 

“No ma’am. There was no one in the ice during the last Zamboni run of the night, and she was found first thing this morning."

“Can I see the Zamboni?” Scully asked. The massive machine was used to clean the top of the ice, shaving off the top and laying down fresh water to create a smooth finish. If there was any trace evidence, the Zamboni surely would have collected it.

Scully followed the cop to where the Zamboni was parked, off-ice at the end of the rink. Mulder stayed behind to try to get a better look at the body. He knelt down, much in the same way Scully had. But Mulder couldn’t keep his balance and face-planted onto the ice. 

The smacking noise drew Scully’s attention. She hid her smile by looking away quickly. _State champions_ , she thought sarcastically, before returning her attention to the Zamboni. There was nothing unusual about the Zamboni, and no signs of blood or skin on the underside. The crime scene analysts would go over it, but Scully didn’t think they would find anything.

She skated back to Mulder, who was clearly having a hard time on the ice. She helped him onto dry land, where Mulder was only too anxious to take off his skates.

“Okay Mulder. Spill it.”

“Spill what? I already spilled out on the ice. Isn’t that enough for you?”

Scully rolled her eyes. “Why were you so excited to get this case?”

“I think we might be dealing with a yuki-onna,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.

Scully sighed. She knew it was one of his monsters. This one sounded a little more esoteric than his usual aliens and yetis, so she waited for him to explain. After nearly a full minute, she finally gave in and asked. “What, pray tell, is a yuki-onna?”

Mulder grew excited. He loved when he got to explain monsters to her. He would jabber on like a child, and she would just roll her eyes and sigh and grow frustrated with him. It was their “thing.”

“Yuki-onna, or ‘snow woman,’ is an ancient Japanese spirit from folklore. There are dozens of different versions of the tale, but she is always described as a beautiful woman, with skin so pale it is translucent. She appears in snow or ice, and leaves no footprints.”

“Sounds like a motivational poster,” Scully quipped.

Mulder ignored her. “She is often someone who died in the snow or ice, sometimes with a child. But she always has….” Mulder paused a beat for dramatic effect, “ice breath.”

Scully shrugged. “So, what, she was the inspiration for Mr. Freeze?”

“Scully, Mr. Freeze had an ice gun,” he admonished. “But you got some nice nerd credentials with that one. No, _ice breath_. Yuki-onna could have frozen the body right into the ice!”

“Mulder, the ice is only about an inch thick - _maybe_ two inches,” she acceded. “Anything below that is concrete and refrigeration units. There is no way a body could fit without any gradient in the ice.”

“You’re no fun,” Mulder pouted.

“It’s possible - _maybe_ \- that the body could have been cut in half lengthwise. Then it would fit smoothly under the ice. But,” she continued, cutting off Mulder from interrupting her, “that would be nearly impossible to do.”

“A spirit can do _anything_ ,” he insisted.

Scully rolled her eyes, determined to change the subject. “So while I go do the autopsy, you will interview the skaters?” Mulder nodded. “See if you can do your interviews off the ice,” Scully offered, “and try not to bring up any Japanese ice spirits.”

* * *

The body had been cut out of the ice and delivered to the autopsy bay. Scully had the block of ice submerged in a warm bath to gently free the body from the frozen water. As she expected, the body was not cut in half lengthwise or in any way malformed in order to fit in the ice. She made a mental note to check the ice rink, to see if the ground beneath the ice had been hollowed out.

“Examination and autopsy of one Marie Harper,” Scully said into the audio recorder as she pulled on the latex gloves. “Miss Harper was seventeen years of age, sixty-six inches in extremis, weighing one hundred and two pounds.”

Scully pulled the sheet off Marie’s face, folding it down to her shoulders. There was a thick, red slash cut deep into her neck, nearly severing the head from the body. “Upon initial examination, cause of death appears to be blood loss due to the severing of the jugular vein.” She measured the wound with a ruler. “Wound is nearly five milimeters thick, and smooth on either side. This is significantly thicker than a standard surgical knife or a kitchen knife, and the blade used appears to have been smooth; not serrated.”

Scully thought about this as she folded the rest of the sheet down the corpse. _What blade could be that thick?_ She didn’t have time to think much about this when the rest of the body was revealed.

There were two thick swaths of flesh cut from the girl’s thighs. The flesh was cut to the bone, leaving large pink patches on the front of her thighs. Scully couldn’t be sure, but the muscle seemed to have been removed with the same blade that sliced her neck. She made note of the missing flesh, then continued with her autopsy. Everything else seemed normal. No signs of disease or trauma; no signs of pregnancy or substance abuse. She sent out for a toxicology report, but didn’t expect to find anything unusual.

* * *

Mulder drank a styrofoam cup of hot coffee while he waited for the rink to reopen. Crime scene investigators had already combed the ice for trace evidence, but the ice was kept clean and Mulder didn’t expect to find anything. Same thing with their check of the Zamboni. He meandered around impatiently, waiting for the skaters to return from wherever they were hiding - a locker room, he supposed.

Bored and frustrated, he wandered back into the rink proper, where he saw a technician had already filled in the hole that had previously been occupied by a dead girl. 

“Hey, wait!” Mulder called out to the man on the ice. “You can’t fill that in! That’s evidence!”

The man shrugged. “Sorry dude. The boss told me we had to fill it in so the skaters could get back on the ice.”

Mulder sagged onto the bleachers, but the icy metal bench was unforgiving against his thin gabardine suit pants. He jumped up and went back to wait in the snack shack. _Scully is going to kill me,_ he thought. He knew she wanted to check out the hole; now there was no hole to examine.

After about an hour, it was like nothing had ever happened. The ice had been returned to its virginal white state. The staff had returned and skaters were allowed on the ice.

He left the warmth of the snack shack and stepped into the ice rink where he saw a clutch of girls on the ice. A few were practicing jumps and spins, but some were congregating around the boards, giggling amongst themselves. Mulder decided to start there.

“Hey girls, I’m Agent Mulder,” he said, flashing his badge. “Mind if I ask you a few questions about Marie Harper?” Some of the girls squirmed nervously, and Mulder took that as a yes. Others looked at him with a lustiness that made Mulder feel uncomfortable. “How well did you know Marie?”

“She was nice,” Hannah spoke up first. “She took me home sometimes when my mom couldn’t.” Hannah was clearly the youngest of the girls in the group, and she seemed the most sincere. Mulder decided to direct his questions to her.

“Did Marie have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?”

The girls tittered at the implication of a lesbian coupling. “None of us do,” Krissy interrupted. “They get in the way of practice.” She looked at Mulder flirtatiously through long, dark lashes. “But I won’t tell if you won’t.” Krissy ran a hand over Mulder’s arm while the girls snickered hysterically. Mulder jerked away, embarrassed and ashamed, like he had somehow brought on the coquetry.

“Was she having any trouble at home? Or at school?” he asked, desperate to change the subject.

The girls laughed dismissively. “Marie was rich, with perfect parents,” Nancy said disdainfully. “And she didn’t go to school. None of us do.” Mulder tensed. He could swear this sixteen year old was rubbing up against him. He was certain of it when he felt a little squeeze on his butt. Mulder jumped, tried to remain cool, and scooted away from the sexually aggressive girls.

“Was there anyone at the rink she was fighting with?” Again, he directed his question to young Hannah, the only one who hadn’t molested him.

The girls looked at one another. “You should talk to Catherine Wildemark.” Hannah pointed to a willowy brunette executing a perfect sit-change-sit spin at center ice. Mulder could tell just by looking at her that she was the rink diva. 

As Catherine exited her spin, it was as if she knew they were talking about her. She looked Mulder up and down, and he wasn’t sure if she was checking him out or checking him over. Either way, it made him nervous. _At least she looks to be of legal age_ , Mulder thought, though it did little to alleviate his discomfort.

Catherine skated over to the boards, but stopped just far enough away to make conversation difficult. “What’s up G-Man?”

“I wanted to talk to you about Marie Harper,” he shouted out to her. “Do you mind stepping off the ice?” Catherine rolled her eyes, and Mulder was briefly impressed. Scully could learn a thing or two from Catherine in the eye rolling department.

“Why don’t _you_ step _on_ the ice?” she taunted.

Mulder sighed and looked down at his wingtips. He had traded his ice skates for his street shoes in the hopes of avoiding the ice. Clearly, that plan didn’t work. The hard soles would be hell on the ice, but he wasn’t about to let this brat get the better of him. _If I hold onto the boards I can probably remain upright_ , he thought, hoping no one noticed his pratfall earlier in the day.

He stepped gingerly on the ice. _So far, so good_. He positioned himself against the boards, hoping he looked more casual than he felt. “So… Marie?” he prompted.

Catherine started skating back and forth in front of Mulder. “Yeah, I know Marie. She’s dead. One less competitor to worry about.”

“So you weren’t friends,” Mulder muttered. “Was there anyone else she had any beef with?”

“ _Beef_ with?” Catherine said with a chortle. She began doing a complex series of footwork that Mulder was certain was done purely to annoy him. And it was working.

“Interfering with a federal investigation is an arrestable offense,” he threatened, hoping to scare her.

She took his threat for what it was: empty. “Well you’ll have to catch me first,” she said, and took off across the ice, laughing all the way. Thoroughly humiliated, Mulder made it off the ice in one piece and held his head up until he got to the lobby - at which point he hung his head in shame and slunk out of the ice rink.


	2. Chapter 2

It was late by the time Scully got out of her autopsy. She drove by the ice rink to check on the ice, but found the rink closed. She made a mental note to ask Mulder about it, then contemplated picking up some dinner before going back to the motel. She was exhausted and decided to head straight to the motel, clinging on to hope that she would have a rogue granola bar in her overnight bag.

She was only in her room a few minutes before a knock at the door brought her a welcome sight: Mulder. And he was carrying an even more welcome sight: half a pepperoni and mushroom pizza. “I figured you probably wouldn’t have time to eat,” he offered. 

While she crammed pizza in her mouth, Mulder shared what little he got from the figure skaters. “Marie was well-liked, homeschooled, and had no significant other,” he told her.

“That’s it? That’s all you got?”

Mulder shrugged and refused to meet Scully’s eye. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Scully stopped eating. “Come on, Mulder. Share with the class.”

He sighed. “Well, there was one girl who could go in the suspects column. Catherine Wildemark. She didn’t seem too upset at Marie’s death.”

This piqued Scully’s interest, but Mulder still wasn’t giving her much. “Is that it?”

“She seemed glad that she had one less competitor to worry about.”

“Well, that fits with my autopsy findings. I think Marie’s neck was slit with a figure skate,” she revealed as she licked grease off her fingers. “Actually, I’m sure of it.”

“Are ice skates sharp enough to do that?”

“Oh yeah. When I was younger, I… had a friend who slit her wrist open on her ice skate. Everyone thought she tried to commit suicide.”

“So we are looking for a figure skater? Or a hockey skater?”

“Definitely a figure skater. The wound was thicker. Hockey blades are much thinner than figure skates.” She started on a third piece of pizza. “Also, there was something else weird about the corpse. There were big chunks of muscle cut out of the body, mostly in the legs.”

Mulder looked a little green as she described this, while stuffing herself with pizza. “Why would there be missing chunks of muscle?”

“Well,” she said around a mouthful of cheese, “I can’t be certain unless we find the flesh, but the main reason muscle would be missing is for food.”

“Do you think wild animals got to her before she made it into the ice?”

“Nope, definitely not. These wounds were precise. They were made with the same blade that slit her throat.”

Mulder looked downright queasy. “Cannibalism?”

Scully shrugged. “Possibly.”

He mulled this over as she finished her pizza. “So why are you so good on ice skates?” he finally asked.

Scully shrugged and washed her hands in the bathroom. “Oh, who knows. Maybe it’s because I’m so short.”

Mulder wasn’t buying this. “Come on, Scully. Out with it.”

She changed the subject quickly, going back to her mental note. “Mulder, did you get a chance to check out the hole in the ice?”

He shook his head sadly. “They filled it in  _ fast _ .”

“Damn. The body wasn’t cut or malformed in order to fit into the ice, so I have no idea how the body got in there.”

“Yuki-onna,” Mulder suggested impishly. Scully rolled her eyes. He waited a few moments to see if Scully would return to his previous question. She instead busied herself with something inconsequential in the bathroom. “Scully,” he tried again, “the skating?”

Scully sighed as she returned from the bathroom. She contemplated her options, but ultimately, she knew she was going to tell him.  _ He shared his traumatic childhood story one night in a motel, _ Scully thought to herself.  _ Maybe this will be our “thing.” _

She sat down next to him on the bed and sighed. “I used to be a competitive figure skater.”

Mulder was blown away by this. He did not expect this from Scully. “Like, with the spangles and sparkles and…” his breath grew short, “...those really short skirts?”

“Yep.”

Mulder tried desperately not to let his mind go to naughty places but he was failing. All he could think about was his partner, as she was, wearing a skin-tight skating dress, with sheer panels and a skirt that didn’t cover anything, twirling around him on the ice, beckoning him with a sensual wave of the arm. He shook his head, desperate to get his mind out of the icy gutter.

“And you could do those big triple jumps…?” 

“Well, I could do some. I never landed a clean triple axel or triple lutz, but I had pretty strong triples for some of the easier jumps. Triple toe loop, triple salchow, triple loop jump.”

Another deep, calming breath got Mulder back on track. “Why keep it such a secret though? I would be proud of that.”

“Like you were proud of your peewee hockey championship?” she teased gently before she got serious. “I didn’t like who I was when I was skating. I was mean, bossy, and  _ so _ competitive. I fought constantly with my parents, my siblings, other kids at the rink.” She sighed heavily. “I didn’t like who I was.” 

”What changed?”

“I fractured my tibia and fibula about a month before Junior Nationals and was bedridden for three months. It was humbling; it gave me a lot of time to reexamine my priorities. I was almost fifteen; I had to choose if I was going to devote my life to skating or school.” She took a beat. “Plus, I learned to be nicer to my mom. She was waiting on me hand and foot. If I wasn’t nice to her, I didn’t eat.”

Mulder absorbed this information. “I believe you when you say you were mean as a figure skater,” he said thoughtfully. A mock-horrified expression came over Scully’s face, and he was quick to explain: “Those ice skaters I interviewed today were  _ mean _ ,” he said. “I felt like I was back in high school, getting picked on by the popular kids.”

“You were picked on in high school?” Scully asked incredulously. She realized she didn’t know much of Mulder’s childhood, outside of Samantha.

“No, I was on the basketball team. I was just fine.” Scully threw a pillow at him playfully. He caught it with a grin and whomped her with it gently. With a gleeful shriek, Scully grabbed another pillow. Soon the two were in the midst of a lighthearted pillow fight. It didn’t turn into one of the feather-spraying pillow fights on Mulder’s secret stash of videos, but it was good fun.

The partners fell back on the bed, giggling. Scully enjoyed the moment of silliness, and marveled that she and Mulder hadn’t ever had a pillow fight before.  _ He was probably hoping it would turn out like the pillow fights on the tapes that he pretends he doesn’t have,  _ Scully thought with a grin. After a few moments, the giggling subsided and their breathing returned to normal.

“Okay, Mulder. Tell you what. Tomorrow, I will go talk to the mean ol’ skating girls.”

Mulder clasped his hands together in mock-prayer. “Thank you! And while you are doing that, I will go to the sheriff’s department and do a little research.”   
  


* * *

APRIL 16

In the morning, Scully did the scariest thing she had ever done on this job: she put on a pair of leggings and a cropped sweatshirt instead of her usual suit. If she was going to interview rink divas, she better look like a rink diva.

When she arrived at the rink, she laced up her skates, keeping an eye on the competition.  _ No, not competition, _ she reminded herself.  _ Suspects. _ She wasn’t sure that was better. 

“Excuse me… are you Dana Scully?” A woman about Scully’s age approached her.

“Yes. Hi… I’m sorry, have we met?” Scully asked, confused and distracted.

“Oh wow, I can’t believe it. My name is Sadie Foster. We competed in some of the same competitions together… gosh, it must have been fifteen or twenty years ago.”

“Oh, hi!” Scully said with perhaps too much exuberance. She didn’t remember this woman, nor did she feel bad about that, but it didn’t seem worthwhile to point that out now. “How have you been?”

“Well, I didn’t make my Olympic dreams come true,” she said with a nervous laugh. “But I’m doing okay for myself. I’m coaching now, and a few of my girls could have  _ their _ Olympic dreams come true.” A beat. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m with the FBI,” Scully said, fumbling for her badge before remembering she didn’t have it on her.

“You are here investigating Marie,” Sadie concluded. “So terrible.”

“You knew her?”

“Yeah, I coached her off and on. A really sweet girl,” Sadie tsked sadly. “She could have gone all the way.”

“Did she have any enemies at the rink? Anyone who might want her out of the way?”

“Everyone loved her. Well,” Sadie lowered her voice, “except Catherine. But Catherine doesn’t like anybody. She sees everyone as a threat.” Scully raised her eyebrow, and Sadie quickly changed her tune. “I don’t mean that Catherine would have done anything… she is harmless. Just kind of bitchy.”

Scully nodded. “I am actually going to talk to her. Is there anything I should know?”

“Flattery will get you everywhere with that one,” Sadie said drolly. 

“Thank you for your help. It was great to see you. If you can think of anything else…” Scully realized she didn’t have her cards on her, either. “I will leave my information with the front office,” she finished.

“Great! Hey, maybe we can grab some lunch while you’re in town? You know, catch up?”

Scully forced a tight smile.  _ This is what I get for faking enthusiasm _ . “I don’t have much time while on a case… but maybe?” She hoped she sounded polite, but unavailable. Sadie smiled and waved goodbye.

Scully gave her laces a final tightening and looked out to the ice. She instantly spotted Catherine at center ice. She was hard to miss. The other skaters seemed enchanted by her. They parted when she came towards them; a flying camel spin earned murmurs of amazement; a clean triple salchow garnered applause. Scully fought back her teenage insecurities and reminded herself she was here to do a job.

One that just happened to involve a little bit of ice skating.

Skates laced, ponytail tight, blade guards off. Scully took a deep breath, and stepped onto the ice. She skated a few laps, more to soothe herself than anything else. 

Catherine approached Scully first. “You’re new here,” she said disapprovingly.

Scully shrugged. “Just passing through.”

“You’re a lot older than most of the skaters here,” Catherine said pointedly. Scully ignored her and continued her laps. Catherine followed. “Hey, wait! I know where I recognize you from! You were with that hot FBI guy, weren’t you?”

Scully said nothing; instead, she stepped into a camel spin.  _ Thank goodness for yoga _ , she thought as she executed a good - but not great - spin.

“So you skate  _ and _ are with the hot FBI guy… the one who can’t skate,” Catherine concluded.

Scully ignored Catherine’s comment about the “hot FBI guy,” and instead remembered what Sadie said and laid on the flattery. “I was watching you. My camel spin can’t compete with yours… and I can’t remember the last time I executed a flying camel.”

Catherine was pleased that the conversation was back on her. “Well, I basically live at the rink,” she said, and started doing a complex footwork series.

“I miss skating,” Scully said. “That’s why I was so glad we got this assignment.”

Catherine stopped mid-choctaw. “You are here investigating Marie, aren’t you? That’s why you are really here. Cleaning up after your partner.”

“You know what they say about women having to do twice the work of the men.” Scully stepped into some basic figures moves.

Maybe it was the flattery; maybe it was because Scully proved her skating chops; maybe it was a “women united” thing. Whatever it was, Catherine skated off to one end of the ice, where she shooed away a few younger apprentice skaters. Scully followed. 

When they were alone, Catherine’s demeanor shifted. She leaned in to speak softly to Scully. “I wouldn’t admit this to anyone… but I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“Another skater died in a ‘car accident’ just two weeks ago,” Catherine said, using air quotes to suggest she didn’t believe it was really an accident. “She was in the driver’s seat, but I heard she was wearing her ice skates.”

This piqued Scully’s curiosity. You can’t drive in ice skates. 

* * *

Done with the ice rink, Scully went back to the motel and changed into something far more comfortable: a pantsuit. She sighed as she buttoned her pants; slipping on the blazer was like putting on armor. 

On the way to meet Mulder at the police station, Scully stopped by a deli to pick up lunch: a salad for her; a sandwich for Mulder. She knew he would have preferred the roast beef to the turkey she got for him, but it was a lower-cholesterol compromise.

Mulder was poring over files by the time she arrived at the station. She exchanged his sandwich for her ginger ale, and sat beside him. “Get anything from Little Miss Cold-as-Ice?” he asked.

Scully rolled her eyes. “Catherine. And yeah, I did.”

“She talked to you?” Mulder sounded incredulous; maybe a bit jealous. 

“She’s scared. She said another skater, Farrah Hawthorne, died in a car accident a couple weeks ago.”

“Yeah… I saw the file….” Mulder rummaged for a moment before he produced it. “It looked pretty legit.”

Scully examined the photos carefully. It was a hell of a crash. Farrah had nearly been decapitated, and her body was a mess of bloody lacerations from broken glass and charred burns from where the airbag popped. “Was there an autopsy?”

“No,” Mulder said, confused. “She spun out on an icy road and plowed into a tree. It’s tragic, but it happens.”

“But look,” Scully pointed to Farrah’s feet, partially obscured by a crushed steering column. At the end of mangled, twisted legs, Scully could just make out… “Ice skates.”

Mulder squinted. He couldn’t quite tell, but he trusted Scully if she said those were ice skates. “You don’t drive in ice skates,” he concluded. “Right?”

“Right. I can’t tell from the photos, but these burns here and here,” she pointed to the girl’s thighs, “could be covering up missing flesh. I won’t be able to tell until we exhume her.”

“Is that Farrah Hawthorne you’re talking about?” the sheriff asked, just happening to overhear. “Nothing to exhume. She was cremated.” Sheriff Wildemark introduced himself to the two agents, and Scully recognized his name.

“Are you Catherine’s father?”

“I am!” he said, beaming with pride. “Farrah was a sweet girl, and a good ice skater. Not as good as Catherine of course… well, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

“She was in the driver’s seat, but it looks like she was wearing ice skates,” Scully points out. 

Sheriff Wildemark examined the photo closely. “It  _ does _ look like she is wearing ice skates,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s not a smart idea, but I have seen skaters in all manner of strange costumes while driving. One time, one of my deputies pulled over a young lady--”

“Why was there no autopsy done?” Scully interrupted, growing annoyed with his “aw shucks” attitude.

“We didn’t really see this as a case. Like your partner said, it was just a car accident.” A beat. “Say, do you think Farrah was murdered?”

“It’s possible,” Scully said, though she was almost certain she was.

“And you think she was murdered by the same person who murdered Marie?”

“It’s possible,” Scully repeated. They didn’t have any solid suspects, though she wouldn’t put it past Sheriff Wildemark to get rid of his daughter’s competition. Hell, until Catherine had tipped off Scully to Farrah’s death, Catherine had been in the suspect column. She decided to add Catherine’s father to the suspect list she was keeping in her brain.


	3. Chapter 3

“See Brian? I  _ told _ you I could find snow!” Jacob ran to the mini mountain of snow, out behind the ice rink, where the Zamboni was parked.

“Aw, cool!” Brian immediately jumped into the pile of hard packed Zamboni “snow,” which was more like shards of ice scraped off the top layer of the ice rink. It wasn’t the light, fluffy snow his parents promised when they came to Colorado on vacation, but he was pretty sure he could make a good snowball with this stuff.

“Ow!” Jacob moaned as he was hit in the head with a snowball. Brian grinned evilly, and the two young boys launched into a wicked snowball fight.

“Boys, come on, your father wants to play golf,” their mother Geraldine called to them. She had followed their small footprints out of the rink and found them playing in the filthy “snow.”

“Mo-om!” Jacob whined. “We finally found snow! Just a few more minutes!”

Geraldine threw her hands up.  _ It’s my vacation, too _ , she thought, annoyed. Not wanting to pick a fight with the boys, she relented. “I’m going to go get a coffee. You have ten minutes to play, then we have to go meet your father.” The boys cheered and resumed their snowball fight while their harried mother went back inside.

“ _ I need meat…”  _ a voice hissed at the boys. They stopped playing and saw what they could only describe as a  _ creature _ crawling out from behind the snow pile. It reminded Jacob of the monster in a Japanese horror film he saw at his friend Billy’s house. His mom had warned him time and time again against seeing that film, claiming it would give him nightmares. Jacob’s defense had been that it wasn’t even real, anyway. While the movie hadn’t given him nightmares, whatever this thing was most certainly would. He was terrified, eyeballing the thing that dragged itself to his older brother.

“I’m gonna go get mom,” Jacob hissed to Brian. It was the only thing he could think to do; he was too scared to remember how they defeated the monster in the movie.

Brian was older, but not by much; certainly not enough to protect his little brother. Instead, Brian was frozen in fear. This creature moved towards him slowly, spasmodically, in a way he had never seen any creature move before. There were creaking noises as limbs rattled in an effort to work. Brian could barely breathe; all he could do was urinate involuntarily, turning the dirty snow at his feet yellow. 

The creature attacked Brian, moving both very fast and achingly slow. He tried to scream, but all that escaped his mouth was a hoarse, ghostly wheeze. Like Marie, Brian’s throat was sliced, and the creature licked the blood as it moved down to Brian’s thighs. Brian thought the creature took bites out of his legs. He felt sharp pains; he heard muscles being ripped away from tendons. Blood poured to the ground, covering his embarrassing urine puddle with thick, oozing red.

By the time Jacob returned with Geraldine, the creature was gone. All they found was Brian - or what was left of him, partially covered in a pile of snow, surrounded by his own bodily fluids.

* * *

The Hawthorne residence was nothing special. A small, two bedroom bungalow with a lush yard that hadn’t seen a lawnmower in about two weeks. Mulder hated this part. Delivering the news to parents that their child was dead was one thing. It was somehow worse to tell them, while still in the fresh shadow of death, that their child may have been murdered. 

The agents knocked, and were greeted at the door by a small, middle-aged man. He looked very tired. “Can I help you?”

“Mr. Hawthorne? I’m Special Agent Mulder, this is Special Agent Scully. We’re with the FBI.” The agents showed their badges in unison. “We are here investigating the murder of Marie Harper over at the Broadmoor. Have you heard about that?”

Mr. Hawthorne seemed to age ten years with that one sentence. “Yes, dreadful story. But I’m sorry, what does that have to do with me? My daughter….” he looked like he was going to burst into tears, but took a deep breath and pushed through. “...We have no reason to go to the ice rink anymore.”

“That’s what we are here to talk to you about, Mr. Hawthorne,” Scully said in that soft, gentle voice of hers. “May we come in?” With no strength to fight, Mr. Hawthorne stepped aside and allowed the agents into his home. The inside wasn’t much different from the outside: it didn’t look like it had been cleaned in weeks. Two weeks’ worth of casseroles and muffins were piled up on various surfaces. Not much of it had been consumed, and insects were starting to gather.

Scully and Mulder sat anxiously on the edge of a well-worn sofa, while Mr. Hawthorne slumped into a Laz-E-Boy that looked as though he had been living in it. “We have reason to believe that your daughter, Farrah, didn’t die in an accident,” Scully said. Mr. Hawthorne looked up anxiously, keying in on the words “didn’t die.” “We think she may have been murdered,” Scully added quickly, not wanting to give this grieving man a second of false hope.

Something flickered in Mr. Hawthorne’s eyes; a spark of fire. “Murdered?” he growled. “Who… who would do that?” Angry tears began to flow as the fresh wound was ripped open.

“We aim to find out, Mr Hawthorne,” Mulder said quickly. “Was there anyone whom Farrah didn’t get along with?”

Mr. Hawthorne bristled. “She was a good girl. She skated. She did her schoolwork. She didn’t get mixed up with the bad kids.”

“Bad kids?” Mulder pushed.

“I don’t know… the kids who weren’t focused. The ones who gossip and boss others around.”

“Would this include Catherine Wildemark?” 

“Is that who did this? Did that tramp kill my baby?” Mr. Hawthorne was growing agitated. The news that his daughter may have been murdered seemed to be giving him a reason to live, if only to bring the murderer to justice.

“No, sir. We don’t have any suspects right now,” Scully interrupted, shooting Mulder a warning look.

“Because she thought she was the queen of the rink! I  _ know _ she had a boyfriend. Running around with him, missing practice. My Farrah  _ never _ did that! She was a good girl!”

Mulder’s cell phone rang, and he gratefully excused himself from the room to answer it. He tried to make it quick, though, because he did feel bad about leaving Scully alone with the angry, grieving father.

It was a quick phone call; one that didn’t need much time. Just enough time for the sheriff to alert him to another body on their hands. But there was one bright spot of the call (relatively speaking): the victim’s brother, Jacob, had  _ seen _ the assailant. Mulder ducked back into the living room and motioned to Scully. She was sitting on the couch, still and quiet while Mr. Hawthorne continued to rant about the “bad girls” and how they ruined his daughter’s life.

“Thank you, Mr. Hawthorne. We will be in touch when we have more details,” Scully said, hurrying after her partner out of the house. Mulder noticed she didn’t leave her card with him.

Once outside, Scully read Mulder’s mind. “Let me guess: they found another body,” she said grimly.

Mulder nodded. “A kid. Boy this time. Behind the ice rink in a pile of snow.”

This piqued Scully’s interest and she looked around. “But there is no snow.” 

“I noticed that, too.” There was a gleam in Mulder’s eye.

* * *

The agents returned to the rink, but this time they didn’t have to put on skates. They went around behind the rink, and found cops, victims, and crime scene tape.

Scully did the honors and folded down the sheet pulled over the latest victim. A young boy, couldn’t be older than twelve or thirteen. He had been killed in the same manner as Marie Harper: a slit throat, and meat cut from his thighs. She noted that there wasn’t much meat on the boy’s thighs; he was likely pre-pubescent. She worried that this meant the killer wouldn’t be satisfied, and it would lead to another murder, sooner than later.

Mulder went over and introduced himself to Geraldine and Jacob. Jacob seemed scared, clinging to his mother. Mulder knelt down so he was on the same level as the boy.

“Hi Jacob. I heard you and your brother were playing back here.”

Jacob nodded. “Momma said we could.”

“You’re not in trouble. I just want to ask you about what you saw.”

The little boy was hesitant. “It was a monster.”

“What kind of monster?”

“You know that movie with that girl who lived in a well? The monster was just like that one!”

“You  _ saw  _ that movie?” Geraldine interrupted. She was angry and distraught and clearly didn’t know what to do with her heightened emotions. She seemed ready to turn on her living child.

“Billy showed me,” Jacob admitted, near tears. 

Mulder jumped in, hoping to diffuse the situation. “Jacob, the monster who you saw here, was it a girl or a boy?”

“I think a girl. But it didn’t look like a regular girl.”

“What do you mean?”

“It didn’t move like a person.” Jacob tried to demonstrate, loping along, legs kicking and arms splaying out awkwardly. “But I think it was a girl because,” Jacob leaned in close to whisper in Mulder’s ear, “it looked like it had boobies.”

While Mulder was talking with Jacob, Scully saw Catherine and went to talk with her.

“Was it the same killer? The one who killed Marie?” She was anxious.

“It looks like it,” Scully confirmed.

“So does this mean he isn’t just killing figure skaters? I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing,” she contemplated.

“I don’t know, Catherine. It looks like this might have been a crime of opportunity.”

“So… he might be coming back for a figure skater,” Catherine concluded, darkness settling in across her face.

Mulder, done with Jacob for now, joined the two ladies. Scully immediately noticed a shift in Catherine’s demeanor. She turned back into the “rink diva.” As Mulder approached, Catherine pulled herself up a little straighter, narrowed her eyes a bit, gave her hair a flip. “Hi, Secret Agent Man,” she said coquettishly. Mulder blushed; Scully rolled her eyes.

Catherine didn’t stop. “Nice to see you standing up straight,” she said. “Although….” She started running her hand up Mulder’s arm. He cleared his throat nervously.

“Um… I… gotta go… over there….” he stammered, and quickly took his leave. Catherine snickered and turned back to Scully, who was growing annoyed with her rink diva schtick.

“Why do you torture him like that? What purpose does it serve?” Scully asked, in an attempt to defend her partner’s honor.

“Jealous?” Catherine shot back.

It was Scully’s turn to blush. “No! I….”

“I’ve seen the way you look at one another.”

Scully was flustered. She had no response to Catherine’s accusation. Instead, she tried changing the topic. “You’re not doing yourself any favors by agitating him.”

“Well, the murders seem to have increased since you two showed up,” she retorted pointedly. With that, Catherine flounced back into the ice rink, presumably so she could return to her power position.


	4. Chapter 4

APRIL 17

Sadie was changing in the locker room when suddenly her left arm slipped out of joint.  _ Shit _ , she thought.  _ Already? _ Sadie was getting worried. It was happening more frequently. And the lack of meat on that little boy yesterday certainly didn’t help her much. She gritted her teeth and forced her humerus back into the scapula. It hurt like a motherfucker, but it seemed to stay in place. For now.

On her way out to her car, Sadie ran into Hannah.

“Hey Hannah. Your mom coming for you?”

“Yeah… I think so,” she said, scuffing her toe against the ground. Her usually perky demeanor was placated; she looked downright despondent. “Unless she is with Brad again….”

“You want a ride home?”

The perkiness returned to her eyes. “Thanks Sadie!” She skipped ahead to Sadie’s car. This wasn’t the first time Sadie had driven Hannah home when her mother had forgotten her… but it might be the last.

In the car, Hannah started fiddling with the radio. Sadie drove silently, contemplating what she had to do.  _ I can’t do this, _ Sadie concluded.  _ She’s only eleven. _ As she was driving, Sadie felt her left knee slip from its joint. Had it been her right knee, she likely would have driven off the road.  _ Okay, time to do this _ , Sadie concluded.  _ I have no other choice. _

Sadie pulled the car off the road into an acre of trees and flowers. It was picturesque - at least, it would be until Sadie completed her task.

“I wanted to pick some flowers for my mom,” Sadie lied. “Would you mind helping me?”

Hannah slid out of the car, chattering happily about flowers or nature or ice skating or some such nonsense. Sadie wasn’t paying attention; she was discreetly pulling out an ice skate from her bag. As she did so, her left shoulder slipped out of joint again. She got out of the car, and she felt her right hip become displaced.

Sadie crept up behind Hannah. She had a loping, uneven gait due to her loose joints. Every step was agony as Sadie lumbered along. Her once limber, agile legs now clomped along as she favored her left leg. Her right leg swung wildly behind her, occasionally settling down at some grotesque angle before swinging around and settling in a different, but no less grotesque, angle.

Hannah had found a pretty patch of wildflowers, and was eagerly picking a respectable bouquet. “Just look at the flowers, Hannah,” Sadie mumbled. Hannah spun around just as Sadie lunged, tackling the tiny girl to the ground. Sadie had learned: slit the throat first. Not too deep or too long; didn’t want to slit the jugular just yet. Just wanted to keep the girl from screaming. The flesh was always better when the victim was still alive.

The girl choked and gagged as blood filled her throat and stained the flowers.

Sadie couldn’t wait. She had watched enough true crime shows to know she shouldn’t, but she could feel all her fingers disengaging from their joints, one after another. She leaned over and tore a substantial, bloody chunk of flesh from Hannah’s thigh with her teeth. Hannah would have screamed, had her voice box not been cut.

Sadie chewed through the big, viscous hunk of meat with gusto. As she did, she could feel her fingers lock back into their joints; she could feel her knee no longer shifting around. She went back in with the sharp blade of her ice skate and cut the rest of the flesh from Hannah’s thigh, making extra-sure that she cut deep enough to not leave teeth impressions.

She sat down to finish her raw human flesh amongst the wildflowers. It was beautiful - even with Hannah beside her, choking to death on her own blood.

* * *

DELLA’S DINER

7:36 PM

Dinner time, and Mulder and Scully decided to splurge: they went to a diner next to the motel.

“So Mulder,” Scully started, casually enough, “what exactly went on with you and those figure skaters?”

Mulder actually blushed, and played with his straw wrapper. “It’s stupid,” he mumbled.

Scully saw he was actually bothered by whatever happened, and reached across the table, taking his hand in hers.

“The girls… they were… well, they were mean. Ruthless. And…” he hesitated again, “they hit on me.”

Scully stifled a chuckle, because she saw how much this bothered him. It bothered her, too, but she wasn’t sure if she was just reacting to his reaction, or if there was something deeper going on. This was a question she didn’t want to explore right now. “Mulder,” she said gently, “I’ve seen other women hit on you. It has never bothered you this much before.”

“These girls were  _ young _ , Scully. Teenagers. Underage. It was creepy.” A beat. “And… they were pretty aggressive about it.”

Scully suddenly felt awkward holding his hand, and started to draw it away, but Mulder held it fast. He didn’t let go until their food arrived: bacon, eggs, and hash browns for him; a turkey burger for her.

As they dug into their dinner, their conversation turned back to the case.

“Do you still think we are dealing with a yuki-onna?” Scully asked, trying to keep a straight face.

“You saw the boy earlier today. It hadn’t snowed... and yet, snow.”

“Mulder, that was from the Zamboni. It shaves off the top layer of ice before laying down fresh water. You can find that pile of snow outside any ice rink. In the middle of August, in San Diego, there would be piles of that stuff outside of  _ my _ ice rink.”

“Okay, fine. How do you explain it?”

“I think we are simply dealing with a serial killer. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Then how do you explain Jacob’s description of the killer?”

Scully sighed. “Mulder, he is a child. You know how unreliable children’s witness statements are. He saw something scary and replaced it with a monster from a movie.”

“He said the killer was a woman. Statistically, the number of female serial killers is practically zero.”

“ _ Practically _ zero. It’s not an impossibility.”

Mulder chewed on a piece of bacon while he pondered this. “Okay, I concede that the little boy may have exchanged a real monster for a fake one. Yuki-onnas aren’t known to move spastically.” Scully grinned, and Mulder wasn’t about to admit defeat, not yet. “But, I saw a memorial set up for a bunch of figure skaters who died in 1961. Maybe one of them left a yuki-onna spirit behind.” The twinkle was back in Mulder’s eye. Scully almost didn’t want to extinguish it.

Almost.

“That was the 1961 US Figure Skating Team. They died in a plane crash in Belgium, not in Colorado. Many of the members trained at Broadmoor. And  _ none _ were of Japanese ancestry.”

Mulder sighed and stabbed at his hash browns. “Well, I’ll do some research into the construction of the ice rink. Maybe someone died while building the place.”

“Just try not to look too excited if you find anything,” Scully advised.

* * *

4:27 AM

Mulder knocked at the door connecting his room to Scully’s. It was well before dawn, and it was times like this that they got adjoining rooms - in case they were needed in the field. Mulder always got the phone call, and Scully didn’t always hear him knocking.

He heard no movement, so he let himself into Scully’s room, and saw her sleeping peacefully. Mulder couldn’t help but admire her like this. Her face was completely relaxed; not a care in the world. She wasn’t driving herself crazy looking through a microscope; he wasn’t driving her crazy with his usual Mulder nonsense. She was at peace.

Unfortunately, they had work to get to.

“Scully!” he hissed.

She sat upright. “Ice ice baby!” she murmured before waking fully. She looked at Mulder, confused for a moment.

“Rise and shine, Vanilla Ice,” Mulder said wryly. “We’ve got another body.”

* * *

APRIL 18

Dawn had just broken when they arrived at the scene of Hannah’s murder. Mulder took in the serene golden light breaking through the mountain peaks, how it glimmered off the dew-kissed flowers. The scene changed dramatically as his eyes continued across the vista, and it faded from fairytale pristine to a scene out of a horror movie.

Hannah was splayed out amongst the flowers, her body showing signs of heavy predation. Mulder could almost feel the eyes of tiny woodland creatures watching him, annoyed that he had interrupted their feast.

Scully did not suffer from any such distractions. She went directly to the body and started examining it. After a few minutes, she rejoined Mulder and filled him in.

“Judging by the blood spatter, it looks like her throat was cut, like Marie’s and Brian’s. There is so much flesh missing, after having been left out overnight, so I can’t tell if flesh was removed or if it was just… eaten by animals.”

Mulder shuddered inwardly at the thought. “Is that something you can tell in the autopsy?”

“Maybe. It depends on how much flesh was cut out - if any; and how much predation there was.” Scully glanced at her watch. “I’m supposed to meet Catherine in a little bit. She suspects that a few other accidental deaths in the area might have been caused by the same killer. Can you go meet with her while I go do the autopsy?”

Mulder shuddered, this time outwardly. “I can’t talk to Catherine.”

Scully rolled her eyes. “Mulder, you are a grown man, with over a decade of interrogation experience. You  _ cannot _ be scared of an eighteen year old girl.”

“And yet, here we are.”

“Are you going to perform the autopsy?”

Mulder gave her a  _ you’ve got to be kidding me _ look.

“So you want me to talk to Catherine  _ and _ perform this autopsy?”

“If given the option, I’d rather do the autopsy.”

Scully sighed. “Fine. If you can get the local coroner to do the autopsy, I will talk with Catherine. Are you okay  _ overseeing _ an autopsy?”

“Yes ma’am!” Mulder said, relieved.

Scully rolled her eyes again. “I’ll write down what you need to make sure the coroner looks out for.”

* * *

Scully checked her watch again. Catherine had promised to meet her after morning practice. Scully arrived a little early, but by noon, there was no sign of Catherine anywhere in the rink.

She was just about to pull out her cell phone when Sadie approached. “You look lost,” she said gently.

Scully was momentarily surprised, but recovered quickly. “No, uh, I was supposed to meet Catherine. Have you seen her, by any chance?”

“I saw her during morning practice,” Sadie said. “But I think she left a little early.” Sadie glanced around, then leaned in conspiratorially. “I think she was meeting a young man,” she whispered.

Scully looked at the coach doubtfully. “I thought boyfriends were… discouraged around here.”

“Oh come on, Dana,” Sadie said with a giggle. “You remember yourself at that age. Could you be kept away from a boy?”

She smiled, but didn’t believe Sadie. When she had been about Catherine’s age, she was focused on her figure skating, and after that, school. Boys were the  _ last _ thing on Scully’s mind until college. 

“Since you have been stood up, you want to get out of here and grab some lunch?”

Scully glanced around the rink one more time. “Sure,” she said slowly. Sadie was a gossip; maybe she could be pumped for more info.

The ladies got into Sadie’s car. “I know a great vegan place up the road a bit,” she said excitedly. Scully suddenly felt bad for Sadie. She seemed lonely; eager for a friend. 

“So how did you go from ice princess to FBI agent?” Sadie asked. She seemed nervous, and Scully made sure her answer was warm, to relax her.

“An injury kept me off the ice for a few months,” Scully explained. “Frankly, I think my parents were glad. It was expensive, and I know my dad wanted me to have a career. You know, besides the Ice Capades.”

Sadie giggled, and seemed to be relaxing.

“What made you join the FBI?” 

“I thought I could make a difference there. You know, hunting the bad guys….” Scully trailed off.

“And have you?”

She sighed. “Made a difference?” She pondered this a bit, then decided she doesn’t need to empty her soul to this poor girl. “I think so. I  _ hope _ so.”

A minute of silence stretched into infinity. Realizing it was her turn to speak, Scully asked her own, banal question. “How long have you been coaching?”

“About five year-- ow!” 

Scully looked over to her companion at the sound of pain. She saw Sadie’s arm, hanging out of its socket loosely.

“Oh my god, Sadie--”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” she grumbled. “Happens all the time. I’m fine.” Sadie did not want to do this again. Not with her. She wanted to be friends with this woman; not arrested by her.

“I’m a doctor; I can help reseat the joint.”

“Wow, a doctor  _ and  _ an FBI agent? You really are an overachiever.” She hoped that the jealousy wasn’t obvious in her voice.

Scully blushed uncomfortably. Sadie started to think that maybe Scully deserved this fate. Here was a woman that had her whole life figured out; she had careers upon careers. Sadie barely had a single career, one that she fell into when she washed up as a figure skater and realized she had no other life skills. 

What sealed the decision was when Sadie felt her toes slipping from their joints.

“Actually, do you mind if we stop by my apartment? I have a sling and some medication.”

“Of course. And if you want, we can postpone our lunch until you are feeling better,” Scully offered.  _ Or until I am back in DC _ , she thought hopefully.

“Don’t be silly,” Sadie insisted, but with every minute she felt more sure about her plan.  _ That overachieving bitch is trying to dump me! _

They arrived at Sadie’s tiny studio apartment. “Oh this place is great,” Scully said with forced enthusiasm, looking around. It was great - for a twelve year old. It reminded Scully of her pre-teen bedroom - and not in a good way. Ice skating posters were thumbtacked to the wall. Skating trophies and medals decorated her bookshelf, which was empty, save for a couple dried floral bouquets, no doubt remnants from competitions long ago. A handful of teddy bears sat on her bed - all in little ice skating outfits. The rest of her stuffed animals sat in a hammock on the wall. Judging by the rest of her room, these were cheap gifts thrown to the ice after a performance.

Scully was weirded out by Sadie’s apartment. It was the room of a kid, one who never grew out of her gold medal dreams. It was not the room of a well-adjusted adult. She was so consumed by the strange decor that she didn’t hear Sadie behind her. She didn’t know she was there until she felt the cold blade pressed against her neck; smelled the warm leather in her nose. Scully’s FBI training kicked in automatically and she threw the woman off her, suffering only a small nick from the very sharp ice skate blade in the process.

Sadie wasn’t giving up without a fight. And fight they did. 

While Sadie got up off the floor, Scully pulled her gun from her holster. “Freeze!” Scully shouted, by instinct more than anything else. With one of Sadie’s arms hanging limply by her side, and the good one clutching the ice skate, Sadie had few options left. She kicked the gun from Scully’s hand, sending it across the floor, where it settled somewhere beneath the bed.

Unfortunately, the force of the kick also caused Sadie’s leg to dislocate from her hip socket. Instead of a neat roundhouse kick, Sadie’s leg flailed and when she tried to set it down on the floor, her body collapsed on top of the leg.

Scully took this opportunity to handcuff Sadie to an exposed pipe. She sat on the edge of the bed to catch her breath and reorient herself. Sadie sat on the floor, hand bound, and stared daggers at Scully.

“Let me take a look at that,” Scully said, moving towards Sadie. This woman had tried to kill her, but Scully still felt the need to to live up to her Hippocratic Oath. Sadie tried to kick Scully away with her dislocated leg; it just flopped around in a macabre display. Scully tried to grab the leg and settle her down, but Sadie came around with the other leg, kicking Scully square in the jaw.

Scully knew better than to try again. With a huff, she pulled out her cell phone and called in the incident, requesting backup and a medical team.

For once, Sadie’s medical condition came in handy. It was easy for her to dislodge her thumb from its joint, allowing her to slip out of her handcuff. Creeping up on her prey was more difficult with so many limbs flailing wildly, but luckily Scully was busy on the phone. Sadie grabbed another ice skate from a pile, and limped along on her one good leg. The other dragged quietly across the floor. Sadie timed her movements to Scully’s words.

“This is FBI Special Agent Dana Scully…”

One step forward.

“...I need back up and a medical team to 3645 Canterbury Lane…”

Another step forward.

“...I have an injured suspect in custody--”

Sadie was upon Scully and caught her unawares. 

“I don’t care if you scream,” Sadie growled, “I just need your meat!” She tackled the agent, and both women collapsed to the ground. Scully had the benefit of having all her limbs properly aligned, making her escape from Sadie an easy one: she just crawled away. 

Sadie’s dislocated hip made her movements strange and asymmetrical. It was horrifying and Scully had a hard time not staring. She didn’t even register that Sadie was approaching her, crawling awkwardly across the floor, slashing at Scully’s legs with the ice skate.  _ She really does look like a horror movie monster,  _ Scully thought. The sharp blade slit off a chunk of her thigh. She hadn’t gotten deep enough to catch any muscle, but it was enough for blood to gush down Scully’s leg, and enough to break her from her reverie. 

Sadie desperately chased down the morsel of flesh, but had a hard time catching it as her fingers had dislocated again. Scully used this opportunity to grab her by the arm. She felt her elbow and wrist dislocate as she wrenched the woman’s arms behind her back, pinning Sadie to the ground.

She wasn’t about to let her go.

Sadie stopped struggling. Whether it was because she realized it was futile, or because so many of her joints were dislocated she couldn’t easily move on her own, Scully didn’t know. But she didn’t let up on her captive until the cavalry arrived, led by Mulder, his gun at the ready.

“Scully, are you okay?” She nodded, but Mulder noticed blood running down her throat and her legs, and was concerned. “Come on, let’s get you looked at.”

“I’m fine, Mulder. They are superficial cuts.” She still didn’t let go of Sadie, not until the paramedics came in. “She’s a flight risk,” she informed the medics as she helped fasten her to the gurney. Most of Sadie’s joints had separated at this point, leaving her a collection of bones rattling around loosely in a skin bag. She reminded Scully of one of Missy’s old ragdolls, tossed into a formless heap on the bed, nothing holding it up. Dana stopped receiving dolls when her mother walked in on her operating on her doll with a kitchen knife. To this day, Scully wasn’t sure what upset her mother more: cutting up the doll to “see what was inside,” or the fact that her six year old was playing with knives.

With Sadie on her way, Scully finally consented to being checked out by the paramedics. She knew she would need stitches, and sat to get her wounds cleaned. 

“You know, this could be a good idea,” Scully said thoughtfully to Mulder. “We have the suspects kidnap me and try to kill me. It will save a lot of investigation time, and then we have a rock-solid case.”

Mulder wasn’t sure if she was being glib or sincere. After Tooms, Pfaster, Schnauz, and the cannibals of Dudley, Arkansas, she had certainly been a victim plenty of times. He couldn’t help but feel especially guilty about this situation.

“Scully, I’m so sorry for being such a… a baby about this case,” he offered. “I should have done the interview.”

“It’s fine Mulder,” she said, this time with sincerity. “I knew the moment I stepped into this apartment that something was off with her.” She offered a hesitant smile, which Mulder returned eagerly. He gave her hand a squeeze.

“Ma’am,” a young paramedic interrupted nervously. “Um, we need to, um, check out your leg….” 

“Of course. Mulder, go check on Sadie, make sure she is still secure. This is no place for a ‘baby’ to be.” She offered him a wink, and he removed himself from the apartment.

* * *

APRIL 20

Scully and Mulder sat in a bland white room with Sadie. After she was arrested and charged with the murders, it became clear that she wasn’t sane and was transferred to a state-run mental institution. She would have a hearing next week.

“So Sadie… talk to me. What happened?” Scully tried to play up the friend card, to get Sadie to talk.

Sadie looked suspiciously at Mulder, who sat in the corner, quietly. She then turned her attention to Scully, and spoke directly to her.

“I was just medicating myself,” she said simply.

Scully glanced at her medical files. “It says here you have a severe form of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. You have hypermobile joints that have a tendency to dislocate. That’s what made you so flexible for figure skating.”

Sadie nodded excitedly. “I know! That’s why my mom signed me up for figure skating when I was a kid.”

“Then tell me… why did you… eat the competition?” Scully could swear she heard Mulder grumble uncomfortably in the corner, but she didn’t dare turn her attention from Sadie.

“It was my medicine,” Sadie explained again, a little annoyed at having to repeat herself. Off Scully’s questioning look, she filled in the details. “When it would happen when I was a kid, my mom would give me raw meat to make me feel better. It always worked. But as I got older and my joints dislocated more frequently, it didn’t work as well. She told me I had to move up to cats and dogs. But then that stopped working, too….” Sadie shrugged and actually looked a little embarrassed. 

“So you moved up to humans,” Scully finished. 

Sadie nodded. “And figure skaters were best because they had the best muscles.”

Scully nodded and glanced at Mulder. The two agents stood to leave. On the way out, Mulder stopped and turned back to Sadie.

“One question Sadie. How did you get Marie under the ice?”

Sadie looked confused. “I didn’t put her under the ice. I just left her on top. That would be  _ impossible _ to fit a person under that ice!” She started laughing, that creepy, crazy-person laugh. The agents left without another word.

Out in the hallway, Mulder turned to his partner. “So, Doctor Scully, what is your expert medical opinion?”

“She’s crazy.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously, she’s crazy. It sounds like she may be suffering from a schizoaffective disorder. She believes that eating raw flesh will solve her joint disease.”

“So her joint disease is real?”

“Yes, but there is no ‘cure.’ Honestly, most people with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome don’t suffer any wide-reaching problems from it. Your joints can dislocate at random, but other than being painful, it’s not life-threatening.” Scully paused for a moment, thinking. “Unless, of course, you are an unstable person with a mother who feeds your delusions in order to live out her own dreams through you.”

“Do I detect a hint of projection?”

She smiled and nudged him gently. “Come with me. I want to show you something before we leave Colorado.”

* * *

“Come on Mulder! The figure skates will be  _ much _ easier to skate in.” Scully was standing on the ice, trying to coax a nervous Mulder onto the ice. She held out her hand, which Mulder was hesitant to take.

“When I fall, I don’t want to take you down with me.”

“I’ll be fine, Mulder. Just step onto the ice, and keep your knees soft. Stand up straight - don’t look down.”

He rocked back and forth a bit on his skates, but he was surprised when he didn’t fall. “You’re right! These skates are much easier to skate in than hockey skates.”

“That’s because of the toe pick,” Scully said knowingly. “It gets a bad rap, but when you are first getting used to skates, they act as a kind of stabilizer. They help you maintain your grip on the ice.”

A motion off-ice drew Scully’s attention sharply. But it wasn’t anything more menacing than a rink diva: Catherine.

Scully excused herself from Mulder and skated over to Catherine. “I see you finally took Hot FBI Guy on a date,” she said with a knowing smile.

Scully blushed profusely and looked down. “I was just trying to help him learn to skate,” she insisted. “Why, are you looking to date him?” Scully was taken aback by the acidity in her own words. She had no right to Mulder, no right to dictate who he dated, and she was surprised by her response.  _ I think I have spent too much time on the ice _ , she thought to herself, fearing she was falling back into her old ways.

Catherine was nonplussed by Scully’s sharp tongue. “Nah, I have a boyfriend,” she admitted. “I actually came to apologize for not showing up for our meeting the other day. We had the opportunity to sneak away for a couple hours….” She let the sentence hang, implications in the air.

“That’s okay,” Scully said. “It actually all worked out for the best.”

A scraping noise from across the ice drew the ladies’ attention. Mulder was getting his feet tangled up in one another. “I’d better….” Scully pointed, and Catherine smiled in understanding.

Scully rushed over to Mulder and took him in her arms, steadying him until he could get his feet straightened out.

With the threat of falling no longer looming, Mulder looked Scully in the eyes, a realization growing in him. “You are my toe pick,” he said sincerely. “You stabilize me. You keep me from falling all over myself in an attempt to get the truth.” 

Scully blushed. 

“You are my toe pick,” he said again, eyes still boring into her.

Hand in hand, the two skated around the ice. With each stroke he took, Mulder felt more stable, and more relaxed. He knew Scully would always be his toe pick.


	5. Epilogue

After nearly an hour on the ice, a lot of laughs, and more than a few falls on Mulder’s part, the agents decided they were done for the night. They headed back to the motel.

“Care for a nightcap?” Scully asked casually in the hallway. Mulder was taken aback. This was so unlike her. Scully must have noticed the flustered look on his face. She giggled and specified: “Hot chocolate.”

Mulder let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding and laughed. “I’d love some.”

In her room, Scully began boiling water in the coffee maker. In the absence of chairs, Mulder sat on the edge of the bed. “When I first started skating, my mom would make me hot cocoa after every class,” she explained. “It’s tradition.”

Scully served the hot chocolate and curled up against the head of the bed. “I miss ice skating,” she admitted. “I had so much fun tonight.”

“Even though you spent most of the time preventing me from falling on my butt?”

Scully smiled and nudged him playfully in the thigh with her bare foot.

“Ow!”

“That hurt?”

“I guess you didn’t prevent me from falling on my butt enough,” he said mischievously. 

Scully suddenly got nervous. Something in the air changed, shifted subtly. She had no witty comeback; in fact her mouth suddenly felt dry. She chugged her cocoa, and when she looked up, she could swear Mulder had inched closer to her. Scully could feel herself blush.  _ It’s just the cocoa _ , she lied to herself.

The silence hung in the air, and Mulder wasn’t sure what to do. “Well, I guess I will head back to my room,” he said slowly, hoping he would be rebuffed. Scully looked at him coyly over her cocoa mug, but said nothing. Mulder leaned forward to put his empty mug on the bedside table.

Scully mistook this as a sign and leaned forward, her lips just barely grazing Mulder’s. There was a spark between them.

Mulder pulled away sharply, surprised by the contact, though not displeased. Scully, however, immediately began to apologize.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, cursing herself.

“No, no. It’s okay,” he soothed.

“I didn’t mean to-- I mean, I don’t want to take advantage of you like those other girls.”

Mulder had to laugh at this. “Scully, you are the only one I want taking advantage of me.”

His honesty made Scully turn as red as her hair.  _ Well, in for a penny, in for a pound _ , Mulder thought. He began to lean in to Scully. Slowly, oh so slowly, giving her plenty of time to back out.

Scully’s heart was pounding in her chest; she was certain he could hear it. She stared at him, at his lips, waiting. Waiting.

Waiting.

Suddenly, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She had been waiting for five years; she didn’t want to wait any longer. Scully leaned forward, closing the distance between them.

Their lips met. For Scully, it was scary and wonderful; delicate and passionate. For Mulder, it felt like home. 

Scully didn’t realize how much she had wanted this; and now that she had it, she wanted more. Mulder had always known he wanted this. But now he couldn’t stop.

Their kiss intensified. Their lips opened and their tongues met, swirling and dancing a choreography they didn’t realize they already knew. Mulder ran a hand through her hair, drawing her closer. They kissed for minutes or hours; neither knew. Neither cared.

Mulder let his hands roam the relative safety of Scully’s shoulders and back. On occasion, his fingers would brush against the side of her breasts, and he could feel her tremble against him. She didn’t pull away.

He allowed his fingers to drift to her breasts, and got no pushback. He ran his fingers over the full mounds, and felt her nipples stiffen beneath her blouse. Scully pulled away and reached down to unbutton her buttons, and Mulder took over for her so she wouldn’t stop kissing him. Instead, she ran her hands through his hair, raking her fingernails gently across his scalp. He shivered. 

Her blouse unbuttoned, Mulder pushed it gently off her shoulders. It pooled around her elbows. He ran his fingers over her slight shoulders, around her shoulder blades, down her spine. She shivered.

The anticipation of seeing Scully naked filled Mulder with a million emotions at once. Anxiety, desire, fear, elation. It was a heady mix. He ran his fingers beneath her pink satin bra straps.  _ Pretty and functional _ , he thought,  _ just like Scully is _ . All he wanted was to ravish her, but he was afraid if he went too fast, was too greedy or selfish, that Scully would disappear like a mist. So he took his time.

Scully, however, had no such qualms. She was scared to take this next step with her partner, her best friend, but now that she was in the midst of it, all she could think about was his lips, his hands, his dick. She wanted all of him, everywhere, all at once. She appreciated his concern, but she wanted him.  _ Now. _

She removed her hands from his hair and let her blouse fall from her arms. She reached behind her to undo her bra, but Mulder grabbed her wrists and returned her hands to his hair. “Let me,” he begged around her lips.

The bra clasp fell away, almost magically. There was no fumbling or groping like in high school. He slid his hands around her ribs, fingers lightly tracing the ridges of where the bra dug into her skin. When he reached her front, he allowed himself to just barely trace the underside of her breasts. He wanted to be able to take it all in at once.

He had to separate from her to remove her bra and get an eyeful of her breasts. They were milky and smooth, with tawny nipples standing proudly at the center. He glanced at Scully, a pleading look in her eye. She gave a slight nod, and he laid her down, taking her nipple into his mouth, paying the same attention to it he had been giving her lips a moment earlier. 

He licked her breast in concentric circles, slowly moving in towards the nipple. He did the same to the other breast, but with his fingers, trailing oh-so-lightly in the same manner. Scully’s back arched beneath her. Her nipples were so hard they were almost painful. When he got to the nipples, he took one in his mouth, sucking it, nibbling it, rolling it with his tongue, while his fingers rolled and pinched the other nipple. He then switched, making sure each breast got equal attention. It offered Scully a brief release, and she huffed pleasurably.

Scully would have been impressed at his attention had she been able to think straight. Instead, all she could do was moan and writhe and shudder beneath Mulder’s tender ministrations. When she felt the rush of moisture in her panties, she scrambled to undo her pants. Mulder took over for her, so she worked at unzipping his pants.

Mulder pulled away from her long enough to remove her pants. He took more time in removing her pink satin panties, slowly pulling them off her hips, allowing them to reveal her pubic mound with a theatricality he hoped was only in his head. Mulder was surprised at how pleased he felt to see that she didn’t shave. Maybe it was after his encounters with the underaged girls at the skating rink. He liked knowing he was with a  _ woman _ . 

He removed his own shirt and pants in a much hastier fashion, tossing them aside, standing naked and unashamed before her. He then took another moment to look at Scully, laying prone and bare on the bed before him.

“You are so beautiful, Scully,” he breathed, choking back the tears, the kind of tears that spring up when in the presence of perfection. And she was true perfection. He had known her perfect mind, her perfect soul. Now, he saw her body was perfect as well. 

For her part, Scully got an eyeful of Mulder - well, several eyefuls. She had seen him shirtless and hugged him tightly enough to know that he was a solid mass of muscles, but had never let herself imagine what he looked like below the belt. And, well, it was a lot. Part of her was worried about taking in the girth, but more than that, she felt a fresh flood of moisture between her thighs.

The couple minutes apart was enough for Mulder. He kissed Scully’s belly button, watching her crimson curls dance gently beneath his breath. He wanted to dive in, but didn’t want to be presumptuous, so instead he crawled up her body, kissing every inch of skin along the way: her stomach, between her breasts, her collarbone, her neck, her chin, until he finally made it back to her lips.

He laid on top of her, kissing her, running his hands over every part of her body he could. She ran her hands down his back and twined her legs around his tight ass, tilting her hips up slightly, urging him to bring it home.

But Mulder wanted this moment to last. He was afraid that once they consummated, it would be like a dream: he would wake up and she would disappear. He was determined to make this last. He angled his cock up, rubbing it against her clit, coating his shaft in her wetness.

Scully revelled in the thick, veiny cock rubbing against her swollen, sensitive clitoris. She began bucking her hips, rubbing her clit against him, desperate for some friction. She was too wet. She was greedy. She wanted more. She pulled her lips away from Mulder’s long enough to whisper in his ear: “Fuck me, Mulder.” She nibbled on his earlobe while she was there.

Dream or not, Mulder couldn’t refuse her. He looked her in the eyes for a final confirmation, and he moved his cock towards her wet opening. He knew he was big, and he knew Scully was small, so he tried to go slowly. Despite his best efforts, it was not an easy transition. He stopped when he heard Scully gasp - in pain, not pleasure.

“Do you trust me, Scully?”

“Of course I trust you. It’s just been a while, and, well, you are so big--”

Mulder quieted her with a kiss, then crawled back down her body, settling between her thighs.

His hot breath against her moist, delicate skin made Scully shiver. He kissed her inner thighs, one, then the other. He kissed her vaginal lips, one, then the other. He kissed her pubic mound. She moaned, and was momentarily concerned she would come before he got to center stage.

She didn’t have to wait long. Suddenly Mulder’s tongue found its way between her vaginal lips, licking the length of her, but avoiding her clitoris. He slid his tongue into her hole, and Scully gasped. She had never felt a sensation like that, slick and strong and warm and wet. He sucked and nibbled her lips, and she squealed happily.

Finally, finally, his tongue found its way to her clitoris, and began a slow dance, flicking her delicate bundle of nerves back and forth. She couldn’t help herself; she grabbed his head and pushed it deeper in, making his tongue attack her clit with more force. 

It didn’t take long, and suddenly there were fireworks behind Scully’s eyes. She tightened her thighs involuntarily around Mulder’s head, but he didn’t seem to mind. 

In fact, it seemed to spur him on more. He did not come up for air. He remained, still sucking on her clit, but this time slipping a finger into her hole. He rubbed his finger around and around, gently coaxing her vagina to open wider. Scully wasn’t sure if it was the amazing sensations or the idea that Mulder was being so gentle and concerned for her happiness, but she came again.

Mulder  _ still _ wasn’t done. Scully tried to tell him to come up, but she was at a loss for words. He added a second finger into her dripping hole, and sucked on her clit harder, grazing it a couple of times with his teeth. And yes, Scully came again. She had never come three times in a row. She had always assumed she just wasn’t one of those women who could have multiple orgasms. Apparently she had just never been with the right man.

After her third orgasm, Mulder slowly came up to face Scully. “Shall we try this again?” he asked softly in her ear. She couldn’t speak, she could barely move. She managed a murmur and the softest nod, then worked up enough energy to kiss him. She could taste herself on his lips, and it lit the fire within her.

She returned her legs to around Mulder’s waist, and he positioned himself to enter her. It was tight, but this time it wasn’t painful. Scully felt completely filled. It felt… perfect. Mulder moved slowly, stroking rather than thrusting. She tilted her head backwards, moaning in pleasure, and Mulder took the opportunity to nip at the delicate skin of her neck

“Is this okay?” Mulder asked.

“Oh yes…” Scully moaned. He nipped at her neck again; she clenched around his cock, drawing him in tighter, closer, deeper.

Mulder started moving a little faster, unable to hold back. “I’m getting close,” he warned.

“Good.”

Mulder’s pace sped up a little more; he couldn’t contain himself. He exploded into her, his entire body spasming and tensing. He buried his head into her neck to stifle his cry of pleasure.

Scully, meanwhile, couldn’t contain herself, either. Feeling him deep inside her, hitting all the right spots, then the throbbing as he came inside her pushed her over the edge. For the fourth time that night, Scully orgasmed.

Completely spent, Mulder rolled off her, but didn’t go far. He gathered her up in his arms, and she snuggled happily against his chest. It was like he was built to hold her; she fit perfectly into his arms.

The two said nothing for a while. They were exhausted, their sweaty bodies stuck together, but that was fine. Neither of them wanted to move.

Mulder finally spoke. “That was…”

“...amazing,” Scully finished. 

He brushed her hair off her forehead so he could place a tender kiss. “ _ You _ are amazing.”

Scully was asleep. Mulder held her tighter, stroking her hair, her shoulder, her back. She was still here. It wasn’t a dream. 

“You are amazing, Miss Scully,” he whispered into her hair. Confident that she wasn’t going to disappear in the middle of the night, Mulder allowed sleep to take him.

* * *

Bright, beautiful sunlight woke Scully the next morning. She felt good. Satiated. She had slept well, a rarity in the cheap motel rooms the Bureau puts them up in.

She looked around and realized why she had slept so well. The previous night’s events flooded back into Scully’s dopamine-laden head. A million thoughts flooded through her mind: the joy of finally taking things to the next level with Mulder. The terror of ruining their friendship, their partnership, her reputation. The pleasure of the best sex she had ever had. She wasn’t sure what to do now. He was still asleep. Should she stay here, lest she wake him? Should she get up and shower? Should she wake him and send him back to his room? Should she just go back to sleep and hope that everything is clearer when she wakes? She was genuinely torn.

The two agents had slept so soundly they didn’t move. So Scully was still wrapped in Mulder’s arms. Mulder’s head was still resting gently against Scully’s head. She realized she didn’t want to move. She was comfortable, curled up against Mulder. She felt safe. She felt loved. She felt happy. And she was tired of feeling the need to apologize for that.

Mulder woke slowly, and seemed surprised to see Scully laying beside him. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she returned, nerves suddenly bubbling up again.

“I am surprised to see you here.”

Scully’s stomach dropped. Her happy bubble popped. This was all bad.

“I’m sorry, I--”

“Ssh. Stop it,” he interrupted, and quieted her with a gentle kiss to her lips. “I meant because I thought last night was all a dream. Nothing makes me happier than waking up to find you in my arms.”

Scully smiled and relaxed back into him.

“Do you wanna grab some breakfast before our flight?”

“Sure. But first I want to lay here for a few more minutes.”

Mulder held her tight. “For as long as you want,” he said softly as she drifted back to sleep.


End file.
